SILENT REMINDERS OF THE O.J. CASE.

Byline: PHIL ROSENTHAL 

You keep telling yourself you don't want to go back there. You want to leave it behind and never think of it again. But a friend in from out of town wants to see something he can tell the folks back home about, and so, inevitably, you return, if only briefly.

You go down Sunset, up Carmelina, past one gorgeous home after another as Carmelina loops around, and then you see it. You can't miss it, really, even at night. The bright colorful braids of holiday lights and cutout bears beyond the fence, carrying candy canes and the benign greeting "Happy holidays," ensure that the place stands out from its more staid and subdued neighbors.

As if it didn't already.

O.J. Simpson lives here.

Christmas has come and gone, and O.J. hasn't - despite the way time usually puts everything in its proper place, and notwithstanding our best intentions to start the new year with a clean slate.

A tarp hangs in front of part of the house to shield it from passers-by, but TV cameras are gone from the corner of Ashford and Rockingham. With their lights no longer shining in Simpson's direction, he apparently feels it necessary to shine some outward.

This is a man who always has liked to draw attention. It would seem he still does, even though that scrutiny has changed dramatically in the 18 months since the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and Ron Goldman.

Their real killer is out and about. Simpson has said so repeatedly since his acquittal in the case. He has vowed to solve the crime almost as often as he has vowed to resume the life he used to live.

Away from the golf courses and other establishments that still tolerate him, this hasn't been easy.

His alma mater, USC, won the Rose Bowl football game on New Year's Day. But, while Simpson used to be a fixture at big Trojans games, the school had little to gain by sending him a pass this time around. It's also unlikely he will be asked in the near future to tell potential recruits how attending USC helps build character the way he once did.

The pro football playoffs have begun and, for a second successive season, he has not been on the sidelines with a network microphone to ask easy questions of the participants and mumble something about how the team that makes the fewest mistakes usually wins.

There has been no new movie work yet, either. He is producing his own home video and infomercial to get his side of his story out on his own terms, without having to contend with lawyers or press and potentially jeopardizing the civil suits he still faces. He will need to be more convincing than he was in "The Towering Inferno."

Down the road, a couple of miles away, you take your friend to Nicole's condo on Bundy. Another Christmas has come and gone here as well, though you would hardly know it. There are no bright holiday lights, only plastic yellow police tape to keep souvenir-hunters away.

You keep telling yourself you don't want to come back here. You want to leave it behind and never think of it again. As long as these two homes stand, however, you know you inevitably will return from time to time, if only briefly, like it or not.